Illuminating the Shadows of Humanity
Wherever you are is where you are. It's not wrong or right, it just is. When we get attached to labeling things as this or that, we create duality, finding that middle ground, that space of honoring without attachment, awareness without attachment.
So wherever you are, whether you're protesting, you're in anger, your sadness, your grief, your shame,your guilt, your joy, your happiness, your peace,wherever you are is perfectly okay. All of it is welcome because the expansiveness of the human condition is exactly that in the world.
What's happening in the world outwardly is just an expression of what's happening with us internally. We learn more from the people that we disagree with than the people who validate our beliefs. How easy it is to find the people who are aligned with your beliefs and that's important because that's your tribe. But don't turn your head the other way from the people who see things differently. Seek to understand their experiences because their experiences are a reflection of you, your internal work, either something that you can lean into that's uncomfortable or acknowledging something that you have processed.
Our inner work creates our outer world. Whatever you believe to be true about the world is your world. Whenever we find ourselves in a place of where the ego comes in, which shows up through our emotions, often we have to get out of our head and into our hearts and our intuitive hearts and listen to the voice within when we find ourselves uncomfortable. That right there is the invitation. That's the invitation for you to grow and expand. It's so much easier to project our emotions outward onto other people and to make them wrong.
We have to take radical personal responsibility for where we stand in our truths and also for the change that we want to create in the world by being the change and doing the inner work. Projecting your emotions outward is not taking personal self responsibility. It's creating an outward expression because you don't want to deal with it. That's the invitation to go inward and ask yourself, what is this here to teach me? Where have I been prejudiced in my life? That doesn't make you wrong. You don't have to feel shame or guilt around that. It's an invitation to do the inner work, to be curious about what it has to teach you. Notice where prejudice and judgment show up in your life against the way any type of person looks, against any type of system trying to create change against anyone who doesn't believe in what you believe in.
Do an internal checklist on yourself of where you notice this showing up, because that's where the work begins with you. That's the way we create change in the world, having discernment without judgment. What is discernment? Discernment is the act of judging. Being discerning with information, not allowing yourself to be fully taken in or guided, for example, by your emotions, but without judgment. There's a difference between discernment and judgment. Judgment has an attachment to it.It goes into, like, what is prejudice, right?Prejudice is like a preconception idea, preconceived idea of what someone or something represents. So discernment is knowing that that already exists and then going inward and discerning for yourself. How is this showing up for me? Discernment is taking personal self responsibility, whereas judgment is projecting outwards. Prejudice is projecting outwards. There's a really big difference, to be honest.
Taking responsibility for how we feel without projecting it onto other people. This is why inner work is so important. Illuminating your own shadows. Go deep into what the shadows are that you have within you, because that is what is being reflected in the world. We can't all be in the same space at the same time. Where we are is a reflection of our own diversity within us, our own diversity of emotions, our own diversity of identities, judgments, and perceptions that are a part of our life experience.
Our lived experience creates who we are today. As one human, we are complex in that way, as one world, as one planet, we are complex in that way. It's also the beauty of the human condition, the duality of labeling. It's not the labeling or the identity itself that causes harm or suffering or creates duality, but the attachment to it. As long as we can own where we are and who we are with these open arms to be open to exploring the other parts of us that others reflect back to us, then that's a healthy place to be.
But if we are so staunch in standing in where we are now, there's a difference between owning your power and knowing your power and standing in it. Knowing it means it's an internal feeling that you don't have to be validated. Standing in it is knowing it and feeling solid in it, like no one can touch you. Owning it is allowing others to witness you in it, allowing others to witness you in your power, sharing with others, sharing with others through the expression of who you are. It’s important for each of us to own who we are. For you to own your life experiences, for you to own your ethnicity, for you to own all of the parts, the identities of your life that have brought you to this moment, it's important to own and to know that that is a part of who you are. Nobody else has lived your life experiences. Nobody else has had the identities that you have. Because of that, nobody's going to understand yours fully. We can try to listen, but we won't know what it's like to be you.
As long as we are willing to give space to people, to allow them to stand and own who they are without trying to change them, then we come to a place where we see unity and oneness and wholeness. It's when we embrace those parts of ourselves, the shadow, that we can embrace what we perceive as the shadow in other people. Just consider how important the inner work is. The inner work is just being illuminated on a global scale right now. This is our chance. This is our chance to choose differently and it's always uncomfortable. The moment you feel uncomfortable, take that step forward.
If you really want to create change in your life, if you really want to show up as the best version of yourself and the capacity of all of whatever that is for you, the capacity to love fully, to be there to be you, for your family, for your friends, for the community, for the world. Then that uncomfortable place is the next step. Find somebody to support you in that process, illuminate those shadows within you, around your prejudice, where your judgment is. If you find yourself really having to project your ideas and be validated and to be right, that's another invitation.
A lot of people really want to speak out, to be validated, and so they only respond to the people who validate them. But then when somebody comes in with another idea that doesn't agree with their post, they're either ignored or it turns into an uncomfortable conversation. Have those uncomfortable conversations with the intention to be curious,to seek to understand the other person's side. Put yourself in every single person's shoes because the truth is, everyone, we are so much more alike than we are different. We are so much more alike than we are different.
Continue seeking to understand. Educate yourself through authentic sources of media. Educate yourself through conversation. Allow yourself to feel the emotions that you're feeling without making yourself wrong or anybody else wrong for where they are. Do the inner work. Journal about it, meditate, pray, just sit with it. Ask yourself, what is this a reflection of me? What is this here to show me or teach me? Seek support. If you're struggling with that, seek support.
Do the work, if you need to go deeper, seek support. This is our time. It's going to be uncomfortable until we're willing to go through it, not around it, not over it, not turning our head the other way. We must go through it. Each of us individually must go through our own shadows. And on the other side is the expanded version of you. The expanded version of you. What would that look like for you? Your joy, your freedom, your confidence, your clarity, peace, love, passion. The expanded version of Survivor strategies and unhealthy emotions becomes those. The shadow becomes the light. Just a different shade.
P.S.
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Jen Mons is an author, speaker, mentor and coach for high achieving purpose driven ready to shift the paradigm of feminine leadership and redefine excellence and wealth through 5 Element Wellth, Prosperity, Daily Devotion Journaling and Soul Wisdom Imprinting.
